


Three Things That Never Happened To Tarma shena Tale'sedrin

by vass



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: BDSM, Band Fic, F/F, Gen, Pining, Soul Bond, Unspecified Number of Things fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/pseuds/vass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarma versus bonds, bondage, and bandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shieldmates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norabombay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norabombay/gifts).



> Dear norabombay,
> 
> I hope you enjoy the almost anything featuring them, the random deities, and the cracked out crossover. I kept all the rape offpage, but I didn't remove it from their canon backgrounds. I hope that's okay. I'm sorry about the lack of Jadrek. If I'd managed to write five things, he would have been in both the other two. :/

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarma and Kethry fall in love. This was not supposed to happen.

It began after they defeated the demon-turned-demigod Thalhkarsh. Thalhkarsh had broken Tarma's vysaka, the bond linking her to the Star-Eyed Goddess, tangible evidence of her kal'enedral oath. The experience had been the worst in Tarma's life to date, worse even than the murder of her clan, for when her clan had been killed, it was through the Goddess that Tarma had survived. With that link broken, she had sunk into catatonia until Nemor, the little archpriest who had been working with them, had restored Tarma's Goddess-bond. All was as it had been before.

A week later, when they were on the road again, Tarma began to notice that all was not as it had been. Oh, her outward appearance, which Thalhkarsh had changed according to his own design to a feminine fantasy of beauty and desire, had been restored to the flat, slender, near-sexless, sword-blade form she was accustomed to. She was healed of all her other physical injuries from the conflict. And most importantly, she could feel the Star-Eyed's connection always with her in the back of her mind. That was not missing. Nothing was missing. And yet something was present, something she had not felt for a long time. But what?

She began watching Kethry more, particularly when it was her own turn to stand guard, and Kethry was sleeping. It stood to reason: she knew that her she'enedra could protect herself, but no one was safe from an arrow in the back, or a snake in the bedroll. It was strange, though, how often her vigil over Kethry took in how the firelight glinted off Keth's amber curls as she combed them out, or the everyday shock of meeting her eyes, green as springtime on the plains.

Warrl kept giving Tarma herself odd looks. She thought :What?: at him, and he just shook his head. Whatever it was, he was not giving it away, and she could not even sense the emotional tenor of it from his thoughts.

And then one night Keth reached past Tarma to grab a saddlebag. Tarma smelled her, wood smoke and sweat and horse and something else, something that was just Kethry, and felt a pull at the base of her stomach and in a moment knew the name of what had changed. She managed not to jerk away from Keth. _Li'sa'eer!_ she thought to herself. _By the highest gods, how can this have happened now?_

She claimed fatigue and let Kethry take the first watch. Kethry gave her a look of surprise: Tarma was not prone to admitting weakness. Warrl, curling up at Tarma's feet, radiated amusement now. :I'll take second watch,: he said to them both. Just to Tarma, he added :I expect you'll be up bright and early for training.: He was right, damn him.

The leshya'e kal'enedral who showed up just before dawn did not speak to Tarma. He appeared before her without fanfare, black-garbed and golden-skinned, ice-blue eyes expressionless above his veil. He ran her through an exceptionally active sparring match, during which she had no time to think, only react. When she was exhausted and shaking in every muscle, he saluted her with his swordblade and vanished. The fog that always surrounded their camp when Tarma's spirit guides were there swirled away, and with it some of Tarma's confusion. Clearly, the Star-Eyed still considered Tarma one of her kal'enedral. Her own sense of the vysaka bond was proof enough, and her spirit visitor confirmed it. But as she stoked up the campfire and cooked an oat porridge, and nudged Warrl awake to hunt his own breakfast, each time her gaze fell on Kethry, she felt the new thing curling inside her, the thing that sword-sworn do not, cannot have. Desire.

*

Warrl watched his mind-mate as he ran beside her horse. He could hear her fretting the back of his mind, her thoughts loping in circles like restless kyree puppies. Disbelief: this could not be happening. Guilt: had she failed her Goddess? A touch of anger: how had her Goddess allowed this to happen? The vow she had offered up to her Goddess was not to abstain from sexual feeling, but a willingness to let the Goddess transmute all such feeling into devotion to the Star-Eyed and to the clans. The Goddess-bond took care of the rest.

Warrl smelled no foreign magic or drug on Tarma, nothing but their common food and drink, and the magic of her own Goddess. Whatever had changed for his mind-mate was internal, not some external force. He was a little surprised. He had thought Tarma to be without sexual desire or romantic attraction, as was Warrl himself.

Warrl was a neuter kyree, neither male nor female in sex. Reproduction was not possible for neuter kyree, but some of his kind still felt either the desire to mate (or, more likely, to eavesdrop on other matings,) or wished to pair-bond without mating. Some others of his kind wished to have offspring, and they tended to any orphans of the pack. Warrl, like the majority of neuter kyree, wished for none of these things, and in their place he felt a wish for adventure and friendship. He had found the same wish in Tarma's mind when Kethry had summoned him.

Now, however, he could smell her want for Kethry, as clear and natural as her total disinterest had been before. Warrl had seen this sometimes in kyree, gervasi, and human alike: a person's natural inclination would sometimes shift over time, never under their own volition. But he sensed, also, that Tarma's ability to want was in the hand of her Goddess. He knew from Tarma's memories that she had loved a young man before the murder of her clan. Then the Goddess had closed her hand over Tarma's heart, to protect her and give her the strength to do what she must. Now, it seemed, the Goddess' hand had loosened again.

*

Kethry was worried about Tarma. The sword-sworn was quieter than usual, slower to laugh or to made a wry comment. She was not eating as heartily. Kethry wondered if Tarma was still suffering from the aftermath of the demon-godling's attack on her. _Should I offer a dreamless sleep charm?_ she thought. _I don't want to shame her, but if she's having nightmares, I want to help. Goddess knows, I know what that's like._ When Kethry had been accepted to the White Winds school, they had needed to tame her night terrors, during which the furniture had flown all around the room, before she was fit to begin learning. She still remembered the relief of that first night when her teacher had put his hand on her forehead and shielded her for the night. "This isn't forever," he had warned her. "You must face your fears soon enough. But this way you'll at least face them rested, hey?"

 _If I catch her having nightmares, I'll wake her up,_ Kethry decided. When she next had watch, she leaned against a tree and listened to the night sounds: a light breeze stirring the leaves above her, a rabbit in the undergrowth, a hooting owl. _Good luck with your prey,_ she thought to the owl. 

Warrl was sprawled on top of Tarma's bedroll, lying lengthwise alongside Tarma. _Radiating heat like a furnace,_ Kethry thought, a little enviously. It was a mild night, and she had her sorcerer robes to keep her warm, and her magic if the wool failed her. And gods knew Tarma felt the cold more than she did.

She turned her attention to Tarma. _No dreams right now, good._ The sword-sworn was curled on her side, one hand under her head, and the other tangled in Warrl's fur. _She looks like a child with a toy. A very big, very sharp-toothed, dangerous toy._ Tarma always looked younger when she slept. Her figure was almost childlike too: no swell of hips and belly like Kethry's own, and only the smallest curve of breast. _A good thing, since she's a warrior,_ Kethry reflected wryly. _Even with a breastband, I still feel like I've been using mine for pells when Need makes me fight._

Tarma's face was still and relaxed in sleep, but there were still circles under her eyes where the golden skin faded to ash. They had been there as long as Kethry had known Tarma - Kethry had her own imperfections which she would correct with cosmetics when they weren't on the road, but that was not Tarma's way. Kethry tried to see if the circles were deeper than they had been until recently. She couldn't tell.

Her gaze flicked down the length of Tarma's body, obscured by the bedroll and the side of Warrl's sleeping form, then back up to her face. Kethry had long ago faced her heightened awareness of her partner's body. _When I first met her, shorn hair and wild eyes, I felt it even then - the first_ good _feeling I'd had in my body in I don't know how long._ She'chorne _, her people call it, but I'm not that - I could love a man, one day, I think, even after everything. I could function with one enough to help her rebuild her clan._

Kethry allowed herself the luxury of looking more slowly, examining every inch of her partner's sleeping form. _No, it's not the want that's bothering me. It's the love. Windborn, I'd do_ anything _for her if she wanted me to. But I know she's sexless and desire-less and devoted to her Goddess, and the only way I can give myself to her is to bear children and help her rebuild her clan._

The thought shook her: _That's why I haven't been able to settle down yet. I told her I'm holding out for a man I can love and respect, but the truth is that I couldn't treat a man I respected that way - to sleep with him because it's the closest I can get to bedding her. When I'd be thinking of her the whole time. Goddess, what a mess._

As she watched, Tarma stirred in her sleep, and rolled over onto her other side, burrowing back toward Warrl to keep the warmth with her. _When that bond of hers was gone, when she couldn't feel her Goddess, and I thought I'd lost her... I couldn't bear it. I'll do anything to help her keep that, to keep her sane and whole, and if that means never telling her how I think of her..._ Kethry turned her hand palm-up and looked at the crescent moon scar on it, twin to the one on Tarma's hand. She held it up to the moon above, and made a prayer of it, trying to think again of the aspect of the Goddess she had spoken to before, when she and Warrl and Nemor had re-opened the Star-Eyed's bond to Tarma. _Goddess, Star-Eyed, if you're listening, show me how to give her what she needs. Help me make a name for her clan so we can attract more Shin'a'in to join under our banner. Or help me find a good man and start pumping out babies for her. Help me, what was her phrase? Litter like a_ kadessa _, a grass-runner. She'll be such a good mother, she loves children. Just help. Please._

*

Tarma came to alertness immediately and silently. As usual, she listened for danger before opening her eyes. There were no sounds out of the ordinary, and yet the air was charged as if something was going to happen. She opened her eyes and saw Warrl standing guard, his yellow eyes glowing faintly in the predawn dark. :Heyla, Furface,: she said, clambering out of the bedroll.  
:You're up early even for you,: he said.  
:Couldn't sleep. I'll take over now.:  
He gave her the kyree version of a shrug, and walked around the bedroll three times before lying down on it.

Tarma quickly checked Keth, on the opposite side of the fire, and then looked away. She did some limbering-up stretches, and then walked off a little way - near enough to see and hear if there was trouble at the camp, but far enough for privacy - and performed her ablutions and then tidied up. The light hadn't changed enough to make training a practical idea. Unless the leshya'e kal'enedral wanted her to practice night fighting - but if they did, they hadn't shown up yet.

She wandered around the edge of camp, among the trees. Suddenly, behind her, she heard a low, musical laugh. Very slowly, she turned around. It was exactly who she had known it would be from the voice: no human voice. A tall, golden, unveiled Shin'a'in woman stood before Tarma, dressed like Her kal'enedral, but unveiled. Her eyes, instead of whites and pupils, held nothing but darkness and stars.

"Da'gretha," Tarma said softly. _Warrior._  
*My sword-sworn,* the Goddess replied, Her words a benediction.  
Tarma bowed her head, the tears welling up against her will. She had not cried in what seemed like years.  
" _Why_ , Lady?" The words tore out of her like a curse unfit to speak in her Goddess' presence.  
*Are you not obedient to My will?* was the response.  
Tarma lifted up her head again to meet those starry eyes. "Lady, I am obedient as always, but I confess that I do not fully understand Your will."  
*And as ever, you did not call on Me to ask for an explanation.* The musical words had a hint of irony. *I love My people, and it is My wish that you are self-reliant and do not run to Me at the first sign of trouble, like an Outlander. But come, jel'enedra, is there not something else that you wish to confess?*

Tarma felt all the air whoosh out of her lungs. She sank to the ground, not because she wished to kneel before her Goddess, but because her legs felt unsteady. "I love her," Tarma said. "And I am your kal'enedral."  
*And what more?* the Star-Eyed Goddess asked gently.  
"I desire her. My she'enedra." And for a moment, Tarma had a vivid memory of her younger self, just fifteen, telling her mother that Dharin wanted to court her, and thinking that no conversation could ever have been so awkward. Then it was washed away in grief, grief for the mother and the suitor and the clan they'd belonged to; grief too for that last remaining Tale'sedrin who had given her life's oath to the Star-Eyed, and was now hit by an impossible desire for her partner.  
*It is well.* The Goddess closed in on Tarma and wrapped her solid, real arms around her. She smelled of springtime on the Dhorisha plains, and of the family Tarma would never see again. Tarma wept onto her Goddess' shoulder. The tears glinted like tiny stars as they fell. *It is well,* the Goddess repeated. *Much has been taken from you, jel'enedra, that you will never get back. You are still My sword-sworn, and as such I will still guard your heart, that you may serve first me, and then the clans as a whole, and only then your clan and your family. But in her I have given you one against whom you will never need to guard yourself. Look.* And She spun Tarma around to find Kethry standing behind her, her green eyes huge with shock and joy.

Slowly, Tarma reached out her hand. Kethry stepped forward and took it, and they both turned to face their Goddess.  
*Before Me you swore an oath of sisterhood,* the Goddess said. *That oath I take back, and in its place I give you a new bond.*

The two watched as the silver moonlight filled the scars on their joined hands, and formed a beam of silver light reaching up to the moon itself, and then vanished. Their scars were gone. Before they had time to mourn, Tarma and Kethry felt, as one, the bond forming in the back of their minds, linking them tighter to each other than the soulbond that had formerly alerted them to each other in danger. This new bond was like Tarma's bond to her Goddess, but on a more human level. Kethry knew the name for it, though not in Shin'a'in. _Lifebond._

As they stood together, love and joy and desire humming between them in a rising spiral, the Star-Eyed smiled and vanished, all at once. "Well," Kethry said breathlessly, finding her voice with difficulty. "I guess we'd better give Her what She wants."


	2. Hobble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You do not hobble your hound, your horse, your lover, or your she'enedra. Love must live free." But what if she wants you to? The one with the nonsexual BDSM.

Their latest assignment for a merchant guild, cleaning out another nest of bandits preying on packtrains. In this case the sword Need had been entirely in agreement with the terms of their employment, since the bandits, in addition to whatever gold and jewelry was available, also liked to kidnap noble women for ransom. Kethry had acted as the soft, silly, highborn bait, and had been tied up and whipped over the pommel of the chief bandit's saddle when Tarma and Warrl had tracked them to their lair and led in the merchant guards.

That evening, in the spartan quarters the merchants had provided them, Kethry was in very high spirits. Tarma gave her a curious look.  
"You're wound up tight tonight, she'enedra."  
"I guess so," Kethry said. She giggled softly. "I'll have to meditate later, do something with all the power I raised."  
"You didn't say before how you get magical power from a fight, did you? You're not Adept yet, so it can't be from node-energy, and I know damn well it's not blood magic..."  
"You're right there," Kethry said sharply.  
Tarma went on, "Sa-hai, you told me before that there are three sources of magical energy: from other people, which I know you're not doing, from natural and the Elemental or Abyssal Planes, or from your own energy stores. If it was from yourself you wouldn't be so refreshed after battle. But you haven't told me about any elemental who enjoys a good fight, not one your White Winds school would countenance. I've noticed you seem to get it from some battles but not others, and I haven't seen a pattern yet."

Kethry was going a little pink, Tarma noticed. "You've got me," she said. "It's not an elemental, it's from myself. Certain kinds of combat can charge me up."  
"Sounds damn useful," Tarma said. "What kinds?"  
Kethry flushed pinker still. "Well, I've told you about some of the ways of raising power. Pain, sacrifice, sex..."  
Tarma laughed. "Is that why you're so embarrassed? She'enedra, I've seen enough fighters dive off into the bushes after a fight to know it takes some people that way."  
"Not quite," Kethry said. "You're right, it's exactly like the energy we can raise from sex, but I've found I can channel it through other acts as well, without the sex."  
"Such as...?"  
Kethry sighed. "Such as being tied up. And beaten sometimes. So long as I know I'm in control of the situation. That bandit crew today were no match for me even if you hadn't been there, and I knew you and Warrl weren't far off if something went wrong. If I know here" - she tapped her head - "that I'm not in real danger, I can let go and enjoy the rush."  
"And reap the magical benefits?"  
"That's right."

Tarma laughed. "I hadn't expected that to be a perk of the life we're leading. I guess when we settle down and start our school and rebuild the Clan, you'll lose that source of power. At least we won't rely on it as much, when we don't get into so many tight spaces that we need your magic to get us out of."  
"When I find the right man, I might well pursue it with him without the fighting and the real danger. I'd understood I could use sex magic that way, and why not this too?"  
"So it could work that way, without a real enemy?" Tarma said thoughtfully.  
"Oh, better. Better with someone I trust," Kethry said. "At least, that's what I think. I haven't really had a chance to put it into practice without the bandits."  
"Like training," Tarma said. "Sometimes a good long training bout is the only chance you have to execute a really neat trick, one of the ones too clever for a real fight." Tarma's spirit kal'enedral were openly scornful of showy, impractical fighting tactics, and never trained her in them, but Justin and Ikan had done some demonstration fighting in the lean seasons, and had shown Tarma that it was an art in itself, wholly different from practical fighting. She'd learned some of their tricks while sparring with them. "Well, Keth, the Star-Eyed knows I can't help you with any sex magic, but it's good to know there's another way to help you raise power. That might come in mighty useful one day."  
"Maybe one day," Kethry said. "I hadn't thought to ask you. Or to seek it out, either - at the moment it's just a helpful bonus."  
"No knowledge is wasted," Tarma said, nodding.

*

Much later, Tarma and Kethry were fighting on Queen Sursha's side of the Jkathan succession dispute. It had been two months since General Leamount had recruited Idra's Sunhawks, and the Queen's forces had been driving back the usurper Kelcrag's army.

Tarma came into the tent she shared with her she'enedra and stopped short when she noticed the strain around Kethry's eyes.  
"Are you getting enough to eat?" she asked. Kelcrag's forces had managed to make some inroads into their supply line, and while the Hawks were in favor with command and Idra had done her best to buffer them from the food shortages, there was only so much that she could do.

Kethry shook her head listlessly. "Not the problem. It's this damned terrain. No ley lines I can draw on. It's nearly barren, magically speaking. Like desert with only a few plants, and none of them good for eating. I'm running short of elementals who owe me favors, and I don't want to go into debt when we don't know how long this damn season's going to stretch on." Tarma nodded sympathetically. "And I'm trying not to spend down my own strength faster than I can build it up again, but then Grendy managed to trigger that pair of boots with the curse on them..."

Grendy had been one of Tarma's scout recruits, not Kethry's mages, but he had a touch of the Gift. Against Idra's strict rules, he'd gone gone drinking and dicing with members of one of Leamount's other companies, and gambled some of his armor. He had lost it, but had won another pair of boots, only to find that they had fused to his feet and started to shrink. Tarma and Kethry, on investigating, had determined that the curse was tied to his own magical ability, and that was why they hadn't affected the boots' previous owner. Friendly fire, not deliberate sabotage. Tarma had a Shin'a'in saying about the friendliness of friendly fire, and Grenly, once possessed of feet again, was seeking employment with a different mercenary troop, but breaking the curse had clearly affected Kethry more than Tarma had realized at the time. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week.

"What can I do?" Tarma asked.  
Kethry looked surprised. "Nothing I can think of, love. You're working as hard as I am right now."  
Tarma narrowed her eyes. "But not recovering as fast, I think. Those spell components you use to bribe your elementals, are there any of them I could send a scout to search for?"  
Kethry shook her head. "I have to gather them myself, that's part of the spell. But thank you."  
Tarma was checking off a list in her head. "No ley lines, no spell components, not enough time to replenish just by resting, and not much fighting of any sort in this stalemate, let alone the right sort of battle to charge you up that way..." She stopped short. "Sheka, I'm an idiot. Why don't I whip you, Keth, like that bandit chief did that time?"

Kethry's mouth fell open. She looked less tired at least. "In a _tent_?"  
"Warrl can keep guard," Tarma said.  
:And thereby stay right out of this,: Warrl himself interjected. He was over at the mess tent gnawing on a bone, but still riding pillion in the back of Tarma's mind.  
"A temporary soundproofing spell would be less work to set up and maintain than the jesto-vath," Kethry said, as if to herself. Tarma knew the jesto-vath, the heating spell on the healers' tent, was a large part of Kethry's current energy expenditure, the more so because it had to be in place all of the time, to keep the wounded from taking ill.  
"But would it help?" Tarma said.  
Kethry met her eyes slowly. "I think it could. I can't know for sure, but it's worth the effort. If you're sure..."  
"I'm sure, Green-eyes. It's my scouts you're healing up, shielding, and protecting from cursed boots."

*

They set it up that night, after Tarma's regular meeting with Idra to discuss the state of the stalemate. Warrl took a post where he could see anyone approaching the tent, radiating embarrassment in the back of Tarma's head. Kethry set up a minor noise cancellation spell, and asked Tarma to go outside and test it briefly.  
"Couldn't hear a thing," she reported when she came outside.  
"I was shouting and stamping my feet while concentrating on something totally different from the spell," Kethry reported. "I think we're ready."  
"Then get comfortable, and I'll shackle you good and tight," Tarma said.

While Tarma had been out, Kethry had procured some extra bedding - a horse blanket and some extra cushions and pillows - and moved aside the groundsheet at one end, and hammered some additional tent pegs, the staple kind, into the ground inside their tent. Beside these were a random assortment of objects: a couple of bandage rolls, a pair of reins unbuckled from the bridle they belonged to, a skin of water, and a pot of salve. Kethry piled the bedding into a large heap, tied into place with the horse blanket, and stripped off her robe and tunic and breastband and curled herself around the bedding, stretching out her arms near the tent pegs. Tarma took the bandages and bound Kethry's wrists to the staples.  
"Too tight?" she asked.  
"No, just fine," Kethry said. She moved her hands from side to side, then pulled them hard.  
"Easy," Tarma said. "Do you want out already?"  
"No," Kethry said, still trying the bonds. "I'll struggle and flinch and yell, but don't stop until I give the word."

"You promise you'll tell me to stop?" Tarma said.  
"I promise," Kethry said. "But I trust you anyway - you've trained enough fighters not to do more harm than you wanted to do."  
"I've never done it to someone who wasn't fighting back," Tarma said.

She picked up the rein. It was an ordinary piece of riding tack, a thing Tarma had handled all her life. It made sense Kethry had chosen that weapon for her to wield. Tarma didn't even own a whip, none of the Shin'a'in would think of using one. "If you need to make your point to the horse that way, you've already lost," her people would say. Tarma swung the strip of leather through the air a few times, experimentally.  
"Last words, she'enedra?" she said.  
"Go ahead," Kethry said.

Kethry's back was very pale and smooth. She had none of the sword scars Tarma's skin had. She was still in better flesh than Tarma, despite two months on low rations. Her muscles were deliberately relaxed. Tarma swung the rein back and brought it down on her where the flesh and muscle were thickest, avoiding the spine entirely.

Kethry gasped a little. "Keep going," she said.  
Tarma swung it again. Kethry gasped again, a little huff. "I'll stop talking now," she said. "It'll make it easier later. Don't worry, I'll speak up when I need to. And you can stop any time you need to as well, don't forget."  
"Vai datha," Tarma agreed. She swung the rein. Kethry flinched away from it, involuntarily. There were red welts now, livid against the unmarred surface. She moaned.

Tarma found it disconcerting, not talking with Kethry while she worked on her. It was like fighting with a pair of pells, not a person. And she couldn't see Kethry's eyes.

Instead she read the pattern of her oath-sister's body. She couldn't see Kethry's face with her back turned to Tarma, but judging by her jawline she was flushed. With every impact of the rein, she tensed up or startled away or, as the pain got greater, jumped, but then she relaxed back in readiness for the next blow. Her breath came very strong and even. Tarma timed her blows to that.

After the first few blows, Kethry started struggling more, still wordlessly. She began to cry out. Tarma watched and listened closely, waiting for a No or Stop, or a sign that Kethry was in trouble, but it never came. Then Kethry's struggling and crying reached a peak, and subsided to a soft moan after each blow, and from there to quieter whimpers.

Tarma felt a rush of emotion for her she'enedra. She had sworn to protect Kethry from anyone who would hurt her. She felt something that was not fear or anger or guilt, but something more like anxiety. Tenderness. That was it. As if she wished to soothe her oath-sister's pain, but the only way she could do so was to keep swinging the rein, making it as regular as possible, layering the blows.

Soon enough, Kethry's whimpers subsided to total silence, and she moved less and less. Tarma would have been more distressed if she had not also observed that Kethry's breathing was regular and even again, as deep as when she was in a mage trance; and in Tarma's own judgement, Kethry's body wasn't hurt past bearing. All the same, it was time to stop. She began to slow her blows, and then on an impulse said aloud "Last five, she'enedra. Counting down now. Five, four, three, two, one."

On the fifth, she coiled up the rein and set it down gently by her still, huddled oath-sister, and watched Kethry for a few long breaths. "Time to untie you," she said aloud. She walked around in front of Kethry, by the wall of the tent, and undid the bandages.

Kethry looked up at her. Her eyes were huge and very bright and peaceful.  
"All well?" Tarma asked.  
"Better than well," Kethry said. Her voice was slow and calm.  
"Thank the Star-Eyed," Tarma said. "What now?" She felt very tired all of a sudden, as if it had been Kethry using her for pells, and not the other way around.  
Kethry sat up and rearranged her pile of bedding so that she could lounge on her side, keeping her back uncovered. "Now we drink some water, you rub that salve into me, and we go to sleep," she said. The vitality was returning to her moment by moment.

Gently, Tarma complied. Kethry's skin was livid and tender under her hands. She'd seen Kethry sunburned worse than that, though, one long march when they'd had no way of avoiding it. When Tarma had rubbed the salve in enough, Kethry pulled on her robe again and pulled another blanket out of the pile, and covered herself with it. "Now lie down with me and share my body heat," she said firmly. "I know when you feel the cold, even if you're being stoic about it."

Tarma climbed under the blanket, and lay down on her side behind Kethry, guarding her back while still avoiding her whip-burned skin. Kethry dispelled the light spell. In the darkness, Tarma felt for Kethry's arm. Kethry took her hand, and pulled it in front of her so that Tarma was hugging her.  
"Did it work?" Tarma asked.  
"Yes, it worked," Kethry said. "Almost like we're fresh from the off season."  
"For'shava," Tarma said, relieved almost beyond words. "Then I won't apologise for having whipped you, ves'tacha."  
"You'd better not," Kethry said.

They drowsed together.  
"What does it feel like?" Tarma asked, just before falling asleep.  
"Not like being tied up and beaten," Kethry said, with a little chuckle, like they were talking about ordinary things. "It feels like freedom, like flying."


	3. Vysaka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interview with Tarma and Kethry, of the feminist folk band Vysaka.

I meet Tarma and Kethry at the campgrounds in Crystal Township, in Oceana County, Michigan, where they are playing at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. They are both wearing fringed leather boots, brightly colored breeches (harvest gold for Tarma, emerald green for Kethry) and loose raw cotton shirts, Kethry's kurta style, making her look like an Earth Mother, and Tarma's more like a guayabera, complimenting her slimmer figure, but both with the distinctive embroidery that marks them as made by Tarma's people, the Shin'a'in. Their jewelry is also Shin'a'in-made, necklaces and brooches carved from wood and bone into the shapes of animals and flowers. Their hair (Tarma's black, Kethry's a dark honey blonde) is tied back with bandannas. They are both wearing yellow armbands.

The two are welcoming, eager to talk about life in the clans and on tour.

Tarma: I'm a nomad, so camping is natural to me. Keth, now, she grew up in a city, so she needs a hot shower every now and then.  
Kethry: Shin'a'in proverb: an enemy's nose is always keener than your own.  
Tarma: _Hai_ , it's true. She's always using our proverbs against me.

Interviewer: Tarma, obviously you're Shin'a'in, can you explain for our readers again how that's different from being Native American?  
Tarma: Not at all in some ways, very much so in others. We're from the Dhorisha Plains, a small region north of Mexico and south of Arizona. We are the indigenous people of that area, just like the first peoples south and north of us are of their lands, and we have our own culture just as they have theirs.  
Interviewer: But you do consider yourself American?  
Tarma: The Dhorisha Plains are considered an unincorporated territory of the United States, like Puerto Rico. But no, I distrust nationalism. I consider myself a citizen of the world first, then American, then a plainswoman, and then Tale'sedrin.  
Interviewer: That's your clan?  
Tarma: Keth's clan too: she's adopted in. [Kethry smiles at this.]

Interviewer: Kethry, can you tell us a little bit about your origins and how you came to be an adoptive Shin'a'in?  
Kethry: I grew up in Texas. My parents died when I was very young. My older brother and I went into foster care, but he always did his best to look after me. [She looks away and takes a deep breath.] When I aged out of foster care, I started wandering.  
Tarma: Your journeyman days.  
Kethry: That's right. I hitch-hiked all over the States and stayed in collective households along the way. I did WWOOFing, I camped with the Rainbow Family, I spent months in on-site camps protesting deforestation, and along the way I picked up the guitar, and that was it. I started singing and playing, busking when I couldn't join other people's acts, and eventually I met Tarma and we teamed up.  
Tarma: She's an adept now, this one.  
Interviewer: Do you still keep in touch with your brother?  
Kethry: No, we're not in contact.

Interviewer: Your first album was _Yai Se Corthu_. This means "two are one", is that right?  
Tarma: Yes, that's right.  
Kethry: It refers to the relationship Tarma and I have, as adoptive sisters within traditional Shin'a'in spiritual beliefs. But I like to think that it can apply more broadly to sisterhood and humanity in general, and all of nature. This whole world, it's one, and we have to look after it, after each other. It's so easy to see yourself as separate, especially in our individualistic American culture. But we are so much more when we work together, exercise our 'power-with', not our 'power-over'.

Interviewer: You're no strangers to controversy. Tarma, you've refused to endorse People for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  
Tarma: Yes, I have. I will always advocate againt factory farming and inhumane slaughterhouse practices, and against food waste and inappropriate land use, but I am no vegetarian. And I am in favor of responsible hunting. That hasn't scored me any points with the animal rights people.  
Interviewer: That must have come as a shock to some of your listeners.  
Tarma: Oh yeah, there was outrage. Imagine that, a Shin'a'in advocating hunting! [laughs] My people have a saying: 'if it gets caught, it deserves to be eaten'. So we do hunt, and we give thanks to the animal before we eat it, and we use every part of it. But we never hunted to extinction, and we've never had feedlots or farrowing crates or put chickens in cages.  
Kethry: They say we're bad feminists because we eat meat. I think there's room for more than one kind of feminism.

Interviewer: Which brings us to your stand on Michfest's policy on transgender individuals.  
They exchange glances.  
Kethry: We've sung at Michfest for a long time.  
Tarma: Longer than I'd like to think about. [laughs]  
Kethry: I'll admit that I used to be very sympathetic to the argument that survivors need a women only space to heal in.  
Tarma: And I used to think that... you know, I was never most people's idea of what a girl's supposed to be like, never felt like that inside either. I was a tomboy and a singer, and I didn't see why the two had to conflict. So if somebody asked if I was a dyke or a man because I wasn't dressed in pink frills from head to toe, I just thought screw them, they don't get to kick me out of my own gender, and I'm a woman, so this must be what a woman is like. And when I encountered trans people, my view was 'why can't they do the same thing?'

Interviewer: But your view on that has changed?  
Kethry: Let's say it's evolved. I'm still strongly convinced that survivors need the space to heal on their own terms. But I can see the trans side of it much more clearly than before. It's so easy to stereotype someone you've never met and imagine it's some - some man dressed up as a woman, trying to sneak into the girls' toilets to spy on you. But that's not it at all.  
Tarma: My best friend, after Keth, is trans. He identifies as neuter, neither male nor female. [editor note: pronouns as originally stated. We were unable to track Tarma's friend down and verify that he prefers male pronouns] And having gotten to know him and listen to his reasoning, I could see how his response to that... to feeling different, not like the other boys and girls... was the opposite reaction to mine, but it was still a valid reaction, and his gender really is what he says it is. [long pause, sigh] Maybe in another life I might have even made the same choice myself.

Interviewer: So it was your friend who put you on a collision course with Michfest's trans policy?  
Tarma: He had a long, hard talk with us about what we were doing by seeming to endorse Michfest's policy. What it would mean to trans people like him and his friends. And Keth and I gave a lot of thought to how to use this microphone we have responsibly, and we decided that we'd protest from the stage. It's not a perfect solution, but it's what we're doing. And that's why the yellow armbands. We stand in solidarity with Camp Trans. [she taps the armband she's wearing.]

Interviewer: On a lighter note, I heard something about a dog that travels with you.  
Tarma: I do have a dog, Kessira. She's a mastiff cross.  
Kethry: She has an asshole dog.  
Tarma: She's not an asshole! She's just a one-woman pup. Anyone touches her without my permission, they come away with a bloody stump.  
Kethry: She means that very literally. Also Kess is an escape artist. She has to come with us on tour because Tarma can't board her anywhere.  
Tarma: If there isn't an exit, she'll make one. [more seriously] Dog training is probably the chief thing I spend my time on, after music. You folks out there, if you want a dog, you'd better be willing to devote a lot of time to them, every day. Long walks, clicker training, reinforcing the behavior you want to see. Never forget that having a dog is work. You don't want to do that, get a pet rock. Animal neglect is my biggest peeve. Pets are like children.

Interviewer: Which brings me to your child abuse awareness campaigns. Is there anything you'd like to say about that?  
Tarma: Every child deserves a safe and loving and adventurous home. Every single child. They deserve to be protected and loved and taught and prepared for adulthood. None of them deserve to be abused and hurt or neglected and unloved. And if you're reading this interview and you see yourself in that, please tell someone you trust. If they don't believe you, tell someone else. Keep telling until you get the help you deserve.  
Interviewer: Are you drawing on personal experience?  
Tarma: No comment.  
Kethry: [at the same time] That's out of bounds.

Interviewer: Musically, let's talk about your album.  
Kethry: I thought you'd never ask!  
Interviewer: You both write the songs...  
Kethry: We each write our own songs, and then arrange them together. And the result is never anything like what we imagined on our own, but always much better. For instance, in 'Center' I had this very ethereal-sounding melody, and then I brought Tarma in on it and it took on this very dynamic energy that reminds me of yoga and active stillness. And she convinced me to let Justin [Twoblade, drummer] and Ikan [Dryvale, pan flute] in on it, and the result was I think really powerful.

Tarma spontaneously sings the opening to 'Center', to illustrate Kethry's point. Her voice is a surprisingly pure, soaring choirboy soprano, totally at odds with her somewhat harsh appearance. Kethry joins in underneath, in a warm alto with a stronger Texas twang than she shows in her speaking voice.

Interviewer: And Tarma, do you feel the same about the musical process?  
Tarma: Absolutely. I think our songwriting talents compliment each other: Keth brings the beauty of nature, and the love songs, and I'm more of a warrior and do the hardcore political ballads, although I also love to get my Shin'a'in history on, the ones we're allowed to tell to Outlanders. But when we arrange them together, they become a seamless whole.  
Kethry: Two are one.  
Tarma: Two are one.

So that's Vysaka, folks, coming to you at Michfest. Their first album, _Yai Se Corthu_ , was released last year, and the new one, _Hawk in Flight_ , is coming out in September.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited the geography of North America to insert the Dhorisha Plains between Mexico and Arizona. It didn't replace anything there, the continent grew to accommodate it. Apologies to the surrounding region. When I thought of this AU, I realized that making Tarma a Native American person would be really fail, since I don't know enough or have time to research enough to do that right. Even worse since in canon she's basically a fantasy Native American. So I did this instead, which isn't non-problematic either. I hope it's not too fail. Comments or criticism on this or any other part of the story are welcome.
> 
> I do not endorse Vysaka's policy on performing at Michfest. Tarma's interpretation of what it means to be genderqueer or trans is not my own, especially the part where she calls it a choice. Warrl had quite a lot of things to say to her about that after he read the interview. He declined to speak to the interviewer for a follow-up because of not wanting to deal with "your lovely Second Wave fanbase," quote unquote.
> 
> Any resemblence between Vysaka and the Indigo Girls is purely obvious.


End file.
